Goodbye to Summer
(Read on Substack page to see the pictures)
Recent visits with friends and family took us to the Blue Ridge Parkway and Smoky Mountain National Park (the number 1 and 2 most visited National Park sites), the North Carolina Arboretum, and the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. The New York Times did a piece on things to do in Asheville, including a Japanese style bath house and spa–didn’t know about that one!
The home place got a coat of paint, a green-tinted color named “Link Gray.” I don’t know if it was an intentional pun on NC’s early rock and roller Link Wray, but I couldn’t resist looking up the YouTube for “Rumble.” He’s featured in a documentary on indigenous people in popular music titled after the song. And, Link has a brand new mural!
We enjoyed some tasty tomatoes from the garden—with mayo and sourdough bread of course! We’re also trying to plant and encourage native flowers where we took out some trees. Our favorite source in Burnsville was profiled in this Washington Post article.
We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary with a wonderful dinner at the newly restored Swag, and I realized other less important but significant events came in years that end with 3. I graduated high school and started college in 1973, moved to Chicago to study at North Park Theological Seminary in 1983, joined the NPTS faculty in 1993, published NIVAC Proverbs in 2003, and started a spiritual direction program in 2013.
Back at North Park for some teaching this summer, I wandered around the old neighborhood and passed our first apartment across from the elementary school. Not much has changed, although the apartments now house college students and the alleys seem more security minded than I remembered.
Something in us loves to mark milestones. Remembering is powerful, and old music has become big business. Take the 50th anniversary of Brothers and Sisters by the reconstituted Allman Brothers–two new members replaced those killed on motorcycles. Our library had a new book claiming that the recording “changed the music of the 1970s.” Well, if you say so– I didn’t finish it. I was more interested in how the record was made, not all the intrigue about the high life and drug charges that followed.
I’d rather re-watch this documentary on Chuck Leavell, “The Tree Man.” He not only played piano on that Allman recording (and later with George Harrison, Eric Clapton and David Gilmour), he also became an award-winning expert on forestry and conservation. Here’s an interview about the film.
That kind of work means a lot around here. The nearby town of Canton was hit hard by the sudden closing of the paper mill and its ripple effects in the original cradle of forestry.
One more anniversary: Kevin Dolan and I recorded two versions of his song “Burning Bridges” three years ago in October, one with full instrumentation (including Kevin’s brother Patrick on guitar), and another that is slower, the way we do it live.
TAKING IN THE MUSIC
Just met Tim Fischer, a guitarist who lives here in Waynesville! I had been bemoaning that jazz guitar is harder to find here than banjo and fiddle. a reverse image of Chicago. Problem solved after meeting Tim and attending his release party for The Holy City Sessions.
Also attended the Cold Mountain Music Festival near the Cold Mountain made famous in the book and movie. I got the ticket to hear 77-year-young Bette LaVette belt out her latest recording but loved discovering the twangy blues of Eddie 9V.
Afternoon rain had emptied the field before Eddie’s set, but as the skies cleared, I set my folding chair where I imagined the front row would be–if anyone returned. A woman was standing nearby and started a conversation: “You here for Eddie? I live around here and came to support my cousin from Atlanta. You won’t be disappointed–Joe Bonamassa likes him and asked him to open for his tour.” And she checked in after the set to ask how I liked it! “What’s with the name Eddie 9V?” I asked. “Oh, they were driving to a gig in the van and started giving each other Mafia names.”
Attended Swananoa Gathering at nearby Warren Wilson College, mostly to take a class with the legendary pioneer for women in bluegrass and old time country, Alice Gerrard. She introduced us to some little-known classics, like “Milk ‘Em in the Evening Blues” (with energetic debate on how to pronounce “cockleburs” as in “tail full of”), but the class wanted to do the songs Alice had recorded on her own and with Hazel Dickens (now reissued and available for streaming). Wish granted, so there we were, singing “Won’t You Come and Sing for Me.” We’re not alone loving that song. Here’s a version from Chris Thile and Norah Jones.
Speaking of music camps– years ago I took a dobro class at the Augusta Heritage Center in West Virginia. Billy Cardine stood out as an exceptional player, so no one was surprised when he made a career of exploring the instrument. He’s played bluegrass, jazz, Indian raga, and Hawaiian styles, settling in Asheville where he developed a synthesizer dobro with the Moog company. I knew I wanted to be at a fundraiser for Maui where he and his Asheville friends played all the above styles. What a show–almost three hours!
PICKING AND SINGING, READING AND WRITING
Our Monday afternoon jam session in the Square was recognized with a nice writeup in the local paper and in a story on Asheville TV. Here’s a pastel by Virgina Roard, cousin of Mike McKee on ukelele. She played the spoons in the lower right corner. I guess I need to work on my posture or bring a better chair.
Thanks to award-winning preacher Rose Lee-Norman for her review of my book: “Circles in the Stream allows the everyday practitioner to grapple with the Scripture and notice the connections in the text while appreciating the journey of transformation through the preached word. Koptak’s methodology mixes rigorous and responsible interpretation with real-life, meaningful transformation of Scripture.”
I wrote a review also: “Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s expanded edition of Practice of the Presence offers fresh translations of the conversations and letters alongside newly translated spiritual maxims and last words. Her comments on this work and its meaning for her life are moving devotional reading as well. She calls Brother Lawrence Friar d’Amour, the “Brother of Love” who’d suffered years of depression and inner turmoil before he decided to do all things for the love of God–especially the tasks he disliked in the monastery kitchen. After that, the times of work and prayer seemed hardly different to him. We are fortunate to have this new remembrance of his wisdom.”
My friend Allen handed me a copy of E. B. White’s On Democracy, a collection of pieces he published over a half-century, many as editorials and casuals for The New Yorker. A biography I snagged at a library sale filled out the story of a man who traveled cross-country in a model T, was happiest at his farm in Maine, and wrote his famous children’s books long after he’d established himself as an non-fiction writer.
I worked with a professor who told her students to keep a copy close by with a warning: if any infractions showed up in their papers, they would be returned. I’ll find my copy before I write the next letter!